Posted on 12/03/2005 9:25:51 PM PST by ncountylee
Religious conservatives have a cause this holiday season: the commercialization of Christmas. They're for it.
The American Family Association is leading a boycott of Target for not using the words "Merry Christmas" in its advertising. (Target denies it has an anti-Merry-Christmas policy.) The Catholic League boycotted Wal-Mart in part over the way its Web site treated searches for "Christmas." Bill O'Reilly, the Fox anchor who last year started a "Christmas Under Siege" campaign, has a chart on his Web site of stores that use the phrase "Happy Holidays," along with a poll that asks, "Will you shop at stores that do not say 'Merry Christmas'?"
This campaign - which is being hyped on Fox and conservative talk radio - is an odd one. Christmas remains ubiquitous, and with its celebrators in control of the White House, Congress, the Supreme Court and every state supreme court and legislature, it hardly lacks for powerful supporters. There is also something perverse, when Christians are being jailed for discussing the Bible in Saudi Arabia and slaughtered in Sudan, about spending so much energy on stores that sell "holiday trees."
What is less obvious, though, is that Christmas's self-proclaimed defenders are rewriting the holiday's history. They claim that the "traditional" American Christmas is under attack by what John Gibson, another Fox anchor, calls "professional atheists" and "Christian haters." But America has a complicated history with Christmas, going back to the Puritans, who despised it. What the boycotters are doing is not defending America's Christmas traditions, but creating a new version of the holiday that fits a political agenda.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
We all know how the NY Slimes feels about "religious conservatives".
Ooops, forgot the Barf Alert.
That's actually clever.
Somebody should just kick this guy's rear end. They are just sick people at that paper.
That's what I thought.
He wanted to know if I had ever said "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas". He wanted to know if I had received orders from my superiors about not saying "Merry Christmas".
I told him I was too busy trying to put food on my table to worry about the PC ramifications of how I answered the phone.
Some people have WAY too much time on their hands.
I choose not to shop here or there. Maybe the NY Times' employee would have me sent away to a "re-education" camp?
It chaps their butts that Fox's campaign is having success.
It is not so much that Christians are in favor of commercializing Christmas. It is more that we are opposed to "Happy Holidays" replacing "Merry Christmas", because we know the agenda that is behind such a move. Christians are striking back against yet another example of "creeping atheism" (or whatever you want to call it). This should not be construed as support for the commercialization of Christmas (which Christians also oppose). The NYT knows this - they aren't stupid, they are cunning. They are deliberately feigning ignorance so that they can have yet another "excuse" to bash Christianity.
So predictable that the NYT would consider commerce to be somehow unworthy of Jesus, as though He never paid for goods or charged for services or gave gifts.
Don't make me open up my can of you know what, speedy. You just need to leave my colleagues alone.
:) HA!
Even I couldn't say that with a straight face.
This guy is a real commie. Probably a member of the bathhouse brigade in that other thread.
I do, but it's obvious you're one of those fascioust conservatives that wants to do away with free speech.
:) HA!
We know, the time it took to type your post proves your point.
Has anyone e-mailed Mr Cohen and told him to 'kiss my *terisk'?
LOL just seeing the NY Times story on here and we know its all bee ess
Well, it would seem that exercising our free will and consumer PRO-CHOICE options has someone's panties in a bit of a wad...
For TRUTH on this, check out http://www.WallBuilders.com
David Barton's site is AWESOME HISTORY.
Welcome to FR.
I emailed him a Christmas message.
But of course the Democratic cry of "Vote or Die" is A-OK.
I'll be right behind you.
Click the Pic
Cohen, you schmuck!!!
"It is not so much that Christians are in favor of commercializing Christmas. It is more that we are opposed to 'Happy Holidays' replacing 'Merry Christmas,' because we know the agenda that is behind such a move."
Your excellent post sums it all up.
Thank you. I thought so, too, when I sent out a one-line joke on our syndicated radio service that conveyed the same idea in similar wording two days ago.
O'Reilly's poll: Will you shopt at stores that don't say Merry Christmas.
http://www.billoreilly.com/
That's pretty much right. We never had a problem with "Happy Holiday" when everything else was allowed. One of our favorite Christmas songs is "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year." But my kids love Mele Kalikimaka and my favorite will always be "O Holy Night." Christians have less of a problem with inclusion. It is exclusion they have a beef with. Exclusion of anything Christian.
how come the slimes doesn't mention that at their poor excuse for toilet paper if you don't check the atheist and secularist boxes on the job application you don't get hired?
I'm upset that your tagline doesn't say Merry Christmas. FReepmail me your phone number so I can grill you for another 5 minutes. :-)
Come to think of it, that's my new tagline.
Very Clever.
I'm glad to see that the NYT's agrees with the Three Kings and the presentation of gifts to the Messiah.
Gee, the left has always used "Puritan" as an epithet...until today...
I'm going to forego mentioning that the Puritans weren't the only Christians in America at the time (oops, I just did), and concentrate on the fact that Adam Cohen had to reach further than three centuries back in our history to find a club to use, and what does he come back with? Puritans. LOL
What the boycotters are doing is not defending America's Christmas traditions, but creating a new version of the holiday that fits a political agenda.
Does he think we have no memories? I want the tradition that existed every year of my life (I'm 47), and that my parents and grandparents had before me. That's all. I want Christmas the way it has been celebrated for most of the twentieth century, before a group of leftwing malcontents got a bug up their ass about it.
The only "political agenda" here is the one that changes the words to traditional Christmas carols and calls Christmas trees "holiday trees".
I guess I'll have to read the rest of the article. There was so much wrong with the first three paragraphs that I can't look away yet.
It is not so much that Christians are in favor of commercializing Christmas. It is more that we are opposed to "Happy Holidays" replacing "Merry Christmas", because we know the agenda that is behind such a move. Christians are striking back against yet another example of "creeping atheism" (or whatever you want to call it). This should not be construed as support for the commercialization of Christmas (which Christians also oppose). The NYT knows this - they aren't stupid, they are cunning. They are deliberately feigning ignorance so that they can have yet another "excuse" to bash Christianity.
Worth repeating.
Sigh.
I love it when the libs try to take such a topic and completely contort and twist it this way. They are SO full of themselves (and barnyard matter) that they actually think some idiots will fall for lines like this. Unbelievable.
Did you say, "OMG, is it Christmas already!?! It was December 3 when I walked into the office this morning -- I know, because I checked the calendar! I must have been unconscious for 22 days. Let me transfer you to another employee, so I can call an ambulance right away!"
CHRISTMAS: Christ Mass The re-sacrificing of Christ over and over.
Hebrews 9:25 "Nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high priest entereth into the holy place every year with blood of others; For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself."
I call you attention to the words "often" and "once".
Well stated.
Well, it's certainly true that one way to have handled this was to say it was "not of this world" and not worth messing with, and that retailers aren't actually religious when they use the word "Christmas," but are merely trying to shake Christians down this time of year-- taking advantage of our beliefs for a quick buck.
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